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The Case for Writers
as Game Designers
Writers, by their very nature, are often a difficult species
to categorize. After all, given the sheer numbers of mediums, styles, genres
and formats, the term “writer” could mean anything from best-selling novelist,
to greeting card scribe, to the nameless copywriter penning the instructions on
the back of your shampoo bottle. Nowhere is the unquantifiable nature of
writers more evident than in the countless wordsmiths currently working in the
video game industry. Yes, writers have now become an integral part of the game
development process, a role as equally important as programmer, animator,
concept artist or producer. Yet the uncertain nature of being a writer remains,
with game scribes being classified as everything from screenwriter and
narrative designer, to dialogue scripter and interactive storyteller. The truth
is there really isn’t any given template for what a game writer does with tasks
ranging from developing branching storylines for a triple-A shooter to creating
snappy dialogue for a casual match-three puzzle game.
Despite the wide range and scope of game writing however,
there remains two standard methods for integrating writers into the game
development process: either writers are in-house staffers (a system employed by
companies such as BioWare and Valve) or they are contracted out to work on
individual projects (as is the case with freelance writer and Gears of War scribe Susan O’Connor). The
narrative itself, however, while a key component of development, still remains
largely disconnected from the overall process of game design. Typically,
writers (whether on staff or on contract) are brought in during or after the
design planning stages and as a result narratives are usually adjusted to accommodate gameplay rather than the
other way around. That’s not to say this process is necessarily a bad thing
mind you, for while the writer obviously doesn’t have complete control over a
game’s design, at the end of the day game writers still fill a vital role in
creating increasingly more complex and satisfying interactive narratives.
Yet while writers often remain outside or only partially
involved in the game design process, there is also a new breed of individuals
working in the industry who not only have the skills to develop meaningful
interactive narratives, but are also responsible for leading the game design
process. This notion isn’t nearly as far fetched as it sounds and if one looks
back over the recent history of the industry, there is indeed a precedent for
game writer-designers. Perhaps the most well known example of this rare hybrid
is the uber-talented Tim Schafer, creator of the critically acclaimed Psychonauts and the upcoming Brütal Legend. Schafer cut his teeth as
a programmer with Lucas Arts, but as a one of the chief designers on the now
legendary 1990 adventure game The Secret
of Monkey Island, Schafer was writing both code and his now signature blend
of over the top comedic dialogue. It’s a role he repeated again when he became lead designer on titles including Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango and the critically-acclaimed (if not necessarily best-selling) Psychonauts, all of which showcase Schafer’s talents as a writer and game designer.
Conversely, while Schafer started out as a programmer who
turned his hand to writing, the opposite holds true for the talented Marc
Laidlaw, one of Valve’s top designer-writers and part of the team behind the
groundbreaking Half-Life series.
Laidlaw got his start as a novelist penning the bestselling Dad's Nuke and The 37th Mandala. It wasn’t until he was eventually hired on by
Valve, however, that Laidlaw began to learn the fundamentals of game design and
would eventually go on to work as both a writer and designer on Half-Life and its subsequent sequel and
episodes, all of which have been praised by fans and critics alike for the
series' seamless innovations in terms of both design and storytelling.
It’s a similar approach to game design that we also find in
the outspoken and talented Ken Levine. As one of 2K Games’ seniors designers,
Levine also has an impressive number of games to his credit, chief among them BioShock; a game which Levine oversaw as
lead designer in addition to developing the story and writing the majority of
the script (with the aforementioned Susan O’Connor lending a hand). It goes
without saying that BioShock was both
a critical and financial blockbuster and was lauded for both its dynamic use of
emergent gameplay and its ambitious alternate reality narrative steeped in
dystopian imagery and the philosophical underpinnings of Ayn Rand.
What Schafer, Laidlaw and Levine all bring to the table is a
unified sense of design and narrative, something few (if any) other games have
been able to achieve. After all, a game’s design and its story are clearly the
two most crucial elements to creating a successful title. It’s no coincidence then that Psychonauts, Half-Life and BioShock
are hailed as some of the most innovative titles of all time, with all three
titles featuring design and narratives that work flawlessly and in complete
tandem with one another. In fact, one can’t help but wonder if these games
would have achieved the same level of success if there had not been the guiding
force of a writer-designer steering the project through the long process.
Obviously, many writers coming into the video game industry
have an assorted range of backgrounds that may make becoming a designer a
difficult proposition. It’s also clear that not everyone has the ability, drive
or talent to take on multiple development roles as Schafer, Laidlaw and Levine
have done. To be a writer-designer (at least, to be a good one) requires not
only an understanding of the fundamentals of story, pacing, dialogue and character
development, but also a solid technological grasp of the tools and process of
game development and design.
In the end of course, games are also not made in isolation and
require an entire team of individuals to contribute to the often chaotic and
complex process of taking a game from concept to shipped title. Yet it’s also
clear that having a unified vision from a lead writer-designer can create a
game that transcends what we’ve come to know and love about the medium. It all
comes down to a simple equation: a good writer is a good writer and a good
designer is a good designer. Period. And if someone is capable of creating a
game that can captivate us with its design and its storytelling, well then,
ultimately it doesn’t really matter whether they call themselves a writer or a
designer or something in between. After all, as the Bard himself once wrote: “a
rose by any other name would smell as sweet”...Of course, if Shakespeare were
alive today, he’d probably also be writing and designing the kind of kick-ass
games that would give even Schafer, Laidlaw and Levine a run for their money…
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I believe the centre of the issue is not insufficient writer involvement, but the common approach to game development, that treats each development "track" as a separate process. There is often a disconnect between the gameplay and the narrative, because they are developed "in parallel", rather than "together". I've met quite a few talented level- and game- designers who had a lot of "cool" gameplay ideas, but very few of them could perform the simple excercise of inventinig a gameplay situation in compliance with a specific theme. "Give me five gameplay ideas that involve ripping the enemy's head off" - "sure, no problem, here we go". "Give me five gameplay ideas that rely on the fact that the enemy has no head" - "ummm... errrr... can I have another question?" Most designers I know don't seem to be used to the idea that narrative particulars may double as game mechanics.
Similar problem may occur with regard to other game aspects, such as art direction: one can easily imagine Bioshock taking place on a faster-than-light spaceship on an exploratory mission to Tau Ceti. In my opinon, the game suffered for this, because it appeared to many (myself included) as stylized, rather than stylish. It felt like a generic survival horror with art deco splashed on top of it.
Personally, I'm strongly opposed to the concept of specialization. The "game director" should be a high level multiclass character. It's probably not realistic to expect every game designer to be also a competent writer, hence the need for tight-knit feature teams. But interdisciplinary teams are useless if members cannot understand each other; and they cannot understand each other unless they have something in common. In other words, game development is a job for generalists.
There are some good points in this post, but overall I think the logic is a little confused. And possibly because I am one of those crazy people pursuing concurrent writing and game design careers this general topic hits home for me.
But I don't think your post at all made an argument for why writers should be game designers, and I think in fact they absolutely should not by default. One of the complications of this particular issue -- the intersection of storytelling and game design -- has to do with the way most game writers come to the field, which is not generally from within game development itself. They primarily come from television and film. This is not a bad thing, but it does not at all qualify a person to be a game designer.
The field as a whole has a still continuing need for better writing and better story, though the situation for both has greatly improved over the last five years or so. But writing should not itself be confused with story, and a lot of excellent dialogue writers can be terrible storytellers (and conversely, it is possible to tell a terrific story using no dialogue at all) -- the two sets of training often coincide but are not one and the same skillset. And both writing and game design are slippery, tricky fields that people who have not seriously studied them often assume they can be good at without study. Further, because story -- not necessarily writing -- is deeply tied in interactive media to system design, there is a natural tension with game writers wanting to be more involved in the bones of the game than just coming in to write a script. This is a valid concern and a valid tension, but perhaps you see where there's a problem with the notion of writers assuming that because they're good at writing they will automatically be good at the separate discipline of game design without study.
On this subject I think it's important to adhere to precise definitions in order to keep the discussion itself clear. The examples you use are all of great writers who are also great game designers, but this does not at all mean that ALL writers would be or could be great game designers. It's great when the two coincide (and I think game designers benefit from studying writing, and vice versa, but given my own choices I am probably biased), and, _separately_, there remains a great need for excellent writing (and, also separately, storytelling) in games, but they are separate skillsets with separate needs and roles to play in the development process.